But in a case such as your friend you’ve now taken something we consider a right and put in place a number of very expensive hurdles. Flying to the US to buy basic equipment like ammunition?
These are unreasonable and can be used as an impediment to selectively discriminate against who is and who is not allowed to have the items.
Take the US for instance, say everyone fills out their paperwork in a similar fashion, but for some reason people with certain skin tones have their paperwork rejected more often due to spelling errors on the form? We already have many issues with unjust and biased enforcement of our laws and things which seem to make sense such as mandatory education and licensing have a history of being used as discriminatory tools by the powers that be.
That’s kind of creepily close to the mark, there. Is this screen two-way or something? <smacks monitor>
PS: Real US civil war issue sabre, not scimitar. Probably looks the same through the screen. It’s duller than a bread knife, and the handle’s coming apart, but it’s an heirloom. Goes well with the moss-covered three-handled family gredunza.
{below are non-accidental causes per the CDC classification}
Suicides (SDs): 40,600
Firearm SDs: 20,666
Homicide Deaths (HDs): 16,688
Firearm HDs: 11,622
Undetermined Intent Deaths (UIDs): 4,737
Firearm UIDs: 256
Legal Intervention Deaths: 550 (some or all are firearm related?)
Total Firearm related (per the CDC report): 33,563 (I can’t tie out this number exactly but am +/-500, but from the notes it should include everything listed above that says “Firearm” + Legal Interventions
Now it all makes sense, although why is the nickname for your dick “derringer”? Figured you would have picked something bigger than a palm sized peashooter to describe the size. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Option 3: Try many of the successful ways that numerous other countries have to deal with this issue. It isn’t like this hasn’t been done in other countries successfully before.
Actually austrailian gun culture was very much like american gun culture when these laws passed, they just agreed collectively that peoples lives were worth more then their personal hobbies.
but that is too rational…do you have any options that don’t actually change anything and actually make guns easier to buy? That is the only type of argument that gun nuts “enthusiasts” will listen to.
Aren’t the vast majority of firearms related injuries and deaths in the US suicide attempts? I’m pretty sure I’ve read that in multiple place. It was a figure like over 50%.
I’m all for assisted dying for those who wish it and have issues like terminal illness or a vanishingly small prognosis of survival. Possibly even a prognosis of living a longish time in terrible pain and debilitation (My grandfather died of ALS after years of suffering. If I were diagnosed, I’d want the option to end my life even if I could still live 10 years, because I don’t want to put my family through what happens with that disease), but depression-related suicide is a very preventable societal ill and is so often terminal with the help of weapons and ammo. I’d say that decreasing the availability of firearms and ammo can be justified in that it doesn’t give sufferers of depression such an easy way out.
I’d rather that we focused more on removing the stigma of depression, and worked to make treatment and help ubiquitously available, as well as working on our society to have fewer of the causes of depression built into our way of life (social isolation etc.), but while we’re at it, we could at least recognize the reality of what guns are mostly used for.
Would you rather we say “defensive gun possession?” I’m pretty sure in this case the terms are interchangeable, and possession might be less likely to offend your semantic and philosophical sensibilities. Although, when you say ownership you often seem to mean something different than nearly everyone else.
I called 911 once, they told me it would be between 30 and 45 minutes before an officer arrived. It was just over an hour. I turned on all the outside lights and the people breaking into the barn fled. I was quite terrified, but would have been much more alarmed without the shotgun.
This is a big country, what’s true in one place is not at all true in another. Defensive gun ownership is statistically a bad deal for the ‘average’ American… However what if you’re not average? What if a co-worker believes you’re responsible for various obscene and lewd messages being delivered to his girlfriend and stalks, harasses you and vandalizes your property? What are the odds that might lead to your being harmed, and how do they compare to the risk of accidental death by firearm in your home? (Also happened to me, my boss speculated I might be the one behind the phone calls and letters, he probably knew better, since it turned out to be him.)
I live in town now, and the previous homeowners NRA member “Don’t knock if I don’t know you”[1] sign on the porch is quite likely more valuable in terms of deterring intruders and protecting me than any firearms I might have.I do in fact have some firearms, but no ammunition, likely that reduces the risk of accident. The likelihood of children having an accident with these locked and properly stored firearms also seems low, since these children would have to break into my house with ammunition.
1: For seven years it has also deterred Jehovah’s witnesses, Mormon missionaries and door to door salesmen with 100% effectiveness, you should get one, it’s more effective than a gun, and certainly safer, I’m not sure how many people die as a result of little plastic sign accidents every year, but I’m wiling to wager it’s rather low compared to the number of little plastic signs. Don’t of course get it from the NRA, or give them money, just make one yourself, scan someone else’s hell I’ll take a picture of mine if you like.
Ahhh yes. America’s homicide rate has dropped by about 50%. As has been posted before on BB, this is most likely due to the fact that we banned lead in gasoline and paint.
However, when another country experiences a homicide rate drop, it MUST be because of their gun laws. I am sure that they still used leaded gasoline and lead in the paint used on baby cribs.
You even said yourself “Defensive gun ownership is statistically a bad deal for the ‘average’ American” So why not have a little more restriction on who can get their hands on a gun? A test to ensure competency? We have to have to take tests to get a license for the rolling murder machines we drive to work everyday, why not guns? I don’t think guns need to be banned, but who can get their hands on them needs to be checked and rechecked.
I’d still be increasing my family’s risk of being murdered by over 5x by moving from NZ to the US, despite the fall. The homicide rate doesn’t count the negligent discharges leading to death or firearm suicide rate either, does it? Those are an avoidable Public Health issue which you aren’t taking into account.
And I am sure that it is all about the gun laws. The economy (especially poverty), the family structure, population density, the glorification of violence in the media (or the lack of it) all have NOTHING to do with it. Yup., the USA and NZ are identical in every regard except for gun laws.
How about tests and licenses to vote? To speak in public? To post on the Internet?
Technically, there is no license or training needed to own or posses automobiles, only to lawfully operate on public roads; my state doesn’t even have mandatory auto insurance. And there aren’t multiple lobbying groups (backed by millionaires) working to outlaw private automobile possession .
The other issue (as mentioned previously) is the USA has a long history of unjust and biased enforcement of our laws. Measures which sound reasonable when proposed (training, permits, registration, inspection) have a history of being used as discriminatory tools. Consider for example “discretionary” permit laws in force today, including North Carolina’s “Handgun Purchase Permit” and carry permits in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
You can pretty much rule out “glorification of violence in the media” as a major factor. As anyone who has travelled to culturally similar countries already knows—we’re pretty much all watching the same Hollywood-produced popcorn fodder now.
But yeah, let’s go ahead and blame the media. After all, you’d have to be NUTS to conclude that American gun policy (a major outlier among first-world countries) has anything to do with our murder rate (a major outlier among first-world countries).
I knew we had a lot of firearms… I didn’t know we had enough to arm every man woman and child in the whole damned country! I thought we had… Like… 80 million or maybe 110 million firearms.
This means there are people hoarding tons of weapons. Like, stokpiling them for war… I knew we had plenty of hicks and hillbillies and “avid hunters” with “large collections” (read: armories) of guns, but this just seems totally disproportionate.
That is the only type of argument that gun 
